Give Your Cause Marketing a Little Extra Punch with a Coupon Hangtag

FUZE, the water flavored with juices and milk and fortified with vitamins and minerals, is an existing sponsor of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and several of its flavors carry Komen’s trademarked version of the pink ribbon and generate $0.10 for every bottle purchased.

But to give the campaign a little extra punch, several in my grocer’s refrigerated beverage case recently included the coupon hangtag you see below.

There are a number of tactical advantages of this approach to FUZE, the retailer, and Komen:

• The coupon encourages additional purchases.
• It can be executed faster than a label change could.
• It can be placed on the flavors, like this one, that don’t normally carry the Komen pink ribbon.
• It makes the ribbon more visible than the beribboned bottle alone.

The back side of this coupon is blank. It’s a pity that FUZE didn’t turn over that space to Komen for breast cancer information, website links, or inspiring stories about survivors and supporters that FUZE calls Heroes For Hope. Since the coupon doesn’t have to be detached to be redeemed, the whole of the back would have been available for this purpose.

There’s also one notable disadvantage to this kind of paper hangtag; I can guarantee that there are loose hangtags strewn all along FUZE’s distribution network from the factory to the floors of warehouses, transportation trucks, and the store’s backrooms.

Shrinkage, or course, is a cost of doing business. But every hangtag that doesn't stay with its intended bottle is unfortunately wasted.